


You Know More Than You Think You Know

by Moraith



Category: Subarashiki Kono Sekai | The World Ends With You
Genre: Bittersweet, Dreamsharing, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Mostly Gen, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-08
Updated: 2019-04-27
Packaged: 2020-01-07 03:13:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18401948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moraith/pseuds/Moraith
Summary: Joshua dreams about his own suicide. Due to some crossed psychic wires, so does Neku. Dream or not, Neku won't let Joshua die.You can't change the past, but sometimes a helping hand can make the burdens it left with you a bit lighter.EDIT: And then, part 2: Joshua invades Neku's dreams in retaliation. He attempts to play a prank and it backfires, but maybe that's not so bad.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Just flood the fandom with short and sweet shipping fic while you're working on other projects, I said. It'll be easy, I said. _This is barely shipping at all and it's like five thousand words long. My other projects are not done._

Neku did not remember coming to this roof. The last thing he could recall was falling asleep in his room, lying on sweat-soaked sheets in the summer heat and letting his hazy thoughts revolve around Joshua, Joshua, Joshua.

But here he was, still in loose-fitting pajamas with his head fuzzy and his limbs heavy with sleep, on the roof of a massive building. It was bright enough that it must have been midday, but a thick layer of dull grey clouds in the sky blocked out the worst of the sun's intense rays. A biting wind howled over the roof, swirling in circles that threw Neku's messy hair into yet more disarray. The summer heat stuck to his skin despite the wind, leaving him too hot and too cold at once in a way that sent shivers down his spine.

The first thing Neku noticed, after the simple fact that he was no longer in bed, was Joshua. Joshua stood on the far end of the roof with his toes hanging off the edge, hugging himself and staring down at the ground below. He wore a school uniform that Neku recognized from the rich snobs who clustered together on the train as if letting some poor sap from a regular high school you didn't have to pay a hundred million yen to get into touch them would kill them then and there. He had never seen Joshua wear it before, but it suited him. 

The trembling shoulders and naked feet did not suit him. Joshua did not wear vulnerability well; it occurred to Neku in the back of his mind that Joshua's refusal to ask for help or admit defeat under even the most dire circumstances may have had more to do with his vanity than his pride. Guiltily, that notion struck him as charming. It was the sort of thought he had often, but not the sort he liked to acknowledge. But while he was drifting in and out of a dream like this, it felt okay to hold on to, just for a moment. 

But then that moment passed and the next moment caught up to him. Joshua was about to _jump off a roof_. When reality snapped into focus, Neku was already moving, his bare feet pounding across the sizzling concrete. Neku extended an arm toward Joshua and screamed his name into the howling wind. Joshua whipped around, eyes wide. He had glasses on, which were not obvious from far away and which made his startled expression look even more alien. Before long, Joshua's shock melted away into a cruel disdainful sneer. Neku put all his strength into his legs, but Joshua was determined not to let the gap between them close. Just as Neku took a last desperate lunge forward, Joshua threw himself backward off the edge.

Neku's fingertips caught Joshua's thin bony wrist. He held on with all his strength and dug in his heels. He felt himself toppling over the edge, pulled along by Joshua's weight. If he didn't let go, he and Joshua would both tumble over the edge. He couldn't do it. For maybe the first time, he finally understood what was going through Beat's head when he jumped in front of that car. No matter what, he couldn't let Joshua fall alone.

Neku gritted his teeth. He didn't have any pins; he wasn't in the UG; hell, he was barely awake. But if he could teleport or time travel or whatever this was, he could manage a bit of telekinesis. He squeezed his eyes shut, lifted his free hand to his temple, and _pulled._

With a surge of mental energy, Neku flung Joshua back up over the edge of the roof and into his waiting arms. Joshua's limp body knocked the breath right out of Neku with a shoulder to the lungs. Despite Neku's best efforts to be strong and heroic, he went toppling backward from the momentum and fell flat on his back. Joshua fell with him, his glasses slipping off and clattering to the ground. Joshua tried to squirm away. Neku wouldn't let him. Through the growing headache and the wheezing, he managed to wrap his arms around Joshua's midsection and pin him. Neku struggled to his feet, dragging Joshua with him despite Joshua's writhing and protests. 

"Let _go_ of me!" Joshua shrieked.

He stomped on Neku's foot as hard as he could, but Neku didn't let his arms go slack. He tensed up instead, squeezing Joshua tighter and keeping him as immobile as possible. 

"No!" Neku snapped. "Why the hell would I let you go!? You're trying to jump off a roof!"

Neku wrestled Joshua away from the edge, step by agonizing step, while Joshua kicked and screamed. With each successful step back, more of the fight went out of Joshua. His flailing got feebler and his protests became quieter and less insistent. By the time Neku had dragged him halfway to the door that led back inside, Joshua had settled for digging in his heels and being as uncooperative as possible without resorting to violence. When less hysterical protest didn't deter Neku either, Joshua gave up. He let Neku pull him to safety, with only occasional token attempts to pull himself free.

They stopped in front of the door, where Neku cautiously let go of Joshua to try the knob. It was locked, of course, because Joshua wasn't that stupid. Neku let out a harsh frustrated growl and wrapped his arm around Joshua again. Joshua craned his neck to get a glimpse of Neku's face over his shoulder.

"You're crying? Really?" Joshua said, his expression lifeless.

Neku blinked rapidly, suddenly aware of the tears spilling down his cheeks. The choked short-of-breath feeling wasn't just because of the adrenaline rush and the shoulder to the chest; his nose was stuffed and runny and there was nothing he could do to make his sniffling sound anything other than pathetic.

"You hit me!" Neku retorted, though the physical pain barely registered. "Why did... why're..." Neku trailed off, stuttering half-formed questions until his voice failed him and he let out a pained wordless sob.

Joshua sighed and rolled his eyes. "Who are you, anyway? I locked the door." He squinted at Neku's face, his lip curling. "If you're supposed to be some kind of guardian angel flying up here to save me, I can't say I'm impressed."

"What...?" The question pierced Neku's chest and dug into his heart like a shard of broken glass. "I'm... I'm Neku. You know, the kid you're stalking?" _Your best friend?_ he didn't say, because maybe that wasn't true after all. "We, um... we hang out in Shibuya every Saturday?"

"I've never seen you before in my life," Joshua said flatly. "Let go of me."

Neku's grip on Joshua tightened again. He swallowed thickly as he tried to get a grasp on his uncontrollable racing thoughts. Joshua was warm; warmer than usual. The air around him didn't have the same ozone smell it usually did that made him seem so otherworldly. He was small and struggling and though he had lost the nerve to fight, desperate. It was as though Joshua were a different person. Neku looked, bewildered, into Joshua's squinting eyes. He glanced away at the glasses left forgotten on the far edge of the roof.

"Wait..." he mumbled, the last of the gears in his head grinding into motion, "...you... you're alive!"

"Mhmm. Thanks to _someone_ ," Joshua drawled. "Now let me go."

Neku let out a long shuddering breath. He did let go of Joshua, for just long enough to twirl Joshua around and pull him into a crushing embrace. Joshua grunted and squirmed, but he still didn't have any leverage to escape. Neku could feel Joshua's heart pounding against his chest almost as hard as his own and he must have been so, so terrified.

"Josh, you're _alive_ ," Neku sobbed.

"Ugh. You sound like my mom," Joshua grumbled. He stomped on Neku's foot again, but he couldn't muster up the enthusiasm to put that much strength into it. " _Let go._ "

Neku flinched and let out a pained whimper between his sniffling and sobbing. He wiped his nose on Joshua's shirt and managed not to be overly heartbroken when Joshua didn't whine about it. 

"Not happening," he croaked into Joshua's shoulder. "You're trying to join the Reapers' Game, right? I won't let you do it."

Joshua stiffened up. "You know about it?"

"Yeah, I do. I played it with you."

"Excuse me?"

Neku took a few breaths, just enough that he could be certain he wasn't going to start sobbing uncontrollably again when he tried to explain, then lifted his head. He managed a feeble awkward smile through the last of the tears.

"Yeah. So can you stop trying to jump for five seconds? Let's... at least talk about it?"

"Fine," Joshua sighed, defeated. He pulled away from Neku as much as he could while Neku had him pinned. "Let me go?" 

"Are you gonna jump off the roof if I let go?"

Joshua studiously avoided looking at Neku's face in lieu of a proper answer.

"Then no," Neku said. 

Joshua's shoulders sagged. Neku couldn't tell whether it was a ploy to Neku feel bad for him so he'd let go or whether everything that was weighing on him was actually settling back in. Either way, the sight made Neku's stomach drop. 

"Sit with me," Neku offered, trying not to sound like he was begging. "We'll talk. I dunno how I even got here, so you just have to put up with it until the universe spits me back out where I belong. I was asleep before, so if this is a dream thing, like... eight hours, max."

"Eight hours of getting my personal space invaded by a delusional stranger," Joshua muttered. "Joy."

Neku snorted, or attempted to, but the sound got stuck in his stuffed-up nose and he choked on it. "Dude, you'd kill to get stuck to me for eight hours."

Joshua exhaled a long sigh. "Can we at least go get my glasses? All this squinting is giving me a headache."

Neku assented and walked Joshua back over to the roof's edge where his glasses had fallen. Joshua tried to run again when Neku bent down to pick them up, of course. It might have worked if Neku hadn't seen it coming a mile away. He tugged Joshua back and shoved the glasses onto his face at entirely the wrong angle. Joshua thanked Neku for nearly putting out his eye, adjusted his glasses, then paused to give Neku a once-over with his newly clear vision. 

Neku raised an eyebrow at Joshua, silently daring him to say whatever insult or innuendo was on the tip of his tongue. Joshua kept his expression carefully neutral and said nothing at all. Instead, he sank to his knees without any fuss, tugging Neku down with him. Neku followed his lead, adjusting his grip on the way so he had an arm wrapped around Joshua's shoulders, more soothing than restraining. 

"I could punch you," Joshua pointed out. He elbowed Neku in the stomach for good measure.

Neku smacked Joshua in the face in retaliation, making sure to hit Joshua's glasses at an angle for an extra edge. Joshua made a whiny pained noise as he re-adjusted his glasses. He didn't hit Neku again. He didn't run.

And now that they were even slightly comfortable—now that Joshua wasn't fighting tooth and nail—Joshua's body pressed up against Neku's began to feel less like life-saving heroism and more like shameless cuddling. Joshua collapsing against Neku and resting his head on Neku's shoulder did not make Neku any less flustered and Neku wondered whether Joshua was making him uncomfortable on purpose as part of another escape plan. 

"What did you say your name was again?"

"Neku Sakuraba."

"Yoshiya Kiryu, though I'm sure you already knew that."

"Yeah, I did."

The two of them lapsed into silence. Joshua had said all he wanted to say and Neku didn't have enough presence of mind to make conversation. Neku could not suppress a shiver as a strong gust blew through his thin clothes and hit his skin. Joshua lifted his head and glanced up, looking as if he were going to say something, then looked back down. He fiddled with a loose thread on his shirt, pretending to be absorbed as if it were the most fascinating thing in the world. Still unable to find his words, Neku curled and uncurled his toes against the rough worn concrete. He hadn't noticed how awful the texture was when he was running earlier. His feet were going to be sore in the morning for sure.

The sun began to shine through the cover of clouds overhead. Its rays were hot enough to make Neku's skin tingle when they hit him. Even the biting wind couldn't stop the dry baking heat of the sun. He watched the light hit Joshua's skin and imagined the burns it would leave behind. Joshua was the palest person Neku had ever seen; there was no way the sun was good for him. 

"Do you want to go inside...?" Neku said awkwardly.

"No." Joshua picked at a small stain on his sleeve with his fingernail. "You're a thrilling conversationalist, by the way. I'm glad we had this talk."

Neku wrinkled his nose. "Shut up," he grumbled, "give me a second."

Joshua obliged. He returned his full attention to various minute imperfections in his clothing while Neku struggled to find a place to start. Neku couldn't help but watch Joshua's hands as they poked at the tiniest of stains and wrinkles with exaggerated urgency. He fought the urge to lay his hands over Joshua's to keep them still or offer some comfort or maybe just to touch Joshua's bare skin with his own.

To force himself away from that train of thought and toward something more helpful, Neku ventured, "What are you doing up here?"

"Killing myself," Joshua replied easily. "I thought you knew that. Or are you just manhandling me because you're some kind of pervert?"

"Yeah, I got that," Neku muttered, trying to focus on his irritation to keep the dread at bay. "I meant _why_."

Joshua paused to put his clothes back in proper order. He shifted closer to Neku when he was done, pressing himself flush to Neku's side and laying his head on Neku's shoulder again. When he spoke, it was with perfect casualness. 

"Because I want to die. Why else?" 

Neku swallowed thickly, his mouth suddenly dry and sour. It wasn't as though joining the Reapers' Game and dying were two separate things; they went hand in hand. Living people couldn't play the Game. Not without getting in big trouble, anyway. Joshua was going to throw himself off a roof. It wasn't a surprise. It wasn't anything he didn't know. But there was something in the way Joshua said it that caught Neku off guard.

"...Not because you wanna join the Reapers' Game?" he asked, unsure what kind of answer he hoped to receive.

Joshua's lips tugged up into a wry smile. "Oh? You're a better listener than I thought, Sakuraba. Kudos." Joshua's hair brushed against Neku's neck as Joshua pressed more of his face into Neku's shoulder. "Partial credit only, though. You _do_ have to be dead to play the Game."

Neku held Joshua closer, as if it would matter. "So... you wouldn't care if you lost?"

Joshua shrugged his shoulders and made a noncommittal noise. "Who's to say? Maybe I'll be filled with joie de vivre as soon as I hit the pavement."

The first thing Neku managed to latch on to out of the tangle of emotion that answer produced was offense at the pun. He smacked Joshua in the face again, more gently than the last time. Joshua let out a startled squawk, followed by a laugh he couldn't quite contain. It was just as playful and soft as his usual obnoxious self-satisfied laughter, but there was a hesitant uncertain note to it, like a song played by a child at their very first music recital. Joshua brushed Neku's hand away from his face, his fingers lingering on Neku's palm for just a moment too long before he pulled away.

"Played the Reapers' Game with me, huh?" Joshua mumbled to himself. He pulled away from Neku and reached under his glasses to rub at his eyes, feeling for stray tears that thankfully weren't there. Neku kept a grip on his arm in case he tried to bolt again, but Joshua couldn't bring himself to be offended about it this time. "How did you manage time travel, Sakuraba?" he asked.

Neku looked down at his pajamas. "...Dunno. I just woke up here."

Joshua hummed tonelessly. He ran a finger over Neku's knee, feeling the soft fabric. "You said we met during the Reapers' Game, didn't you? Why don't you want me to join in?" He smirked crookedly at Neku. "Having second thoughts?"

Neku opened his mouth, then closed it. "It's a long story, I guess."

Joshua shrugged. "I'm a captive audience for the next eight hours, aren't I? Try me." He leaned forward, resting his chin on his palm to make himself look as interested as he could.

Neku licked his lips. "...Yeah." 

He stumbled through an explanation of everything, starting with the things that felt the most important—the murder, the partnership, the sacrifice, the betrayal, the reconciliation—but Joshua kept asking more and more questions and before he knew it, Neku was sharing random insignificant details he hadn't known he remembered—the way Shiki always tucked Mr. Mew under her arm with his head toward her back when she ate so his face wouldn't get stained, how Rhyme sometimes bounced on the balls of her feet to hear her pendant ring when she had nothing else to do, how Beat refused to try anything on in the store before buying it and ended up with clothes a size too big half the time.

In the middle of the story, somewhere between the Reaper army turning against him during the third week and the way WildKat smelled like coffee but not the coffee Mr. H actually served, Neku's hand slipped down Joshua's arm to grasp his hand instead. By the time Neku was comparing the merits of the different branches of Sunshine Burger, their fingers had laced together. 

"I'm never going to meet you again," Joshua said in the middle of a tangent about the music-loving wall Reaper who couldn't for the life of him carry a tune.

Neku's narrative came to a screeching halt. He blinked owlishly at Joshua's face. 

"If I don't kill myself, that is. I won't be Composer. I'll be an adult before you're born." Joshua twirled a finger in the air to indicate himself and the roof and everything else. "This is the only reason we ever met."

Neku gaped at Joshua. He was right, of course, because Joshua was always right. But there was no way Neku was going to let Joshua die. Neku squeezed Joshua's hand and tried not to wince at the sweat forming on his palms. "But—"

"But what? You don't want me to die?" He held up his and Neku's hands and cast a significant look at their interlaced fingers. "Are you sure?"

"Yes!" Neku snapped, his shoulders rising around his ears. "Yes, I'm sure! I don't want you to die!" He hesitated, deflating. He took a long look at Joshua's hand in his, his eyes lingering on his long elegant fingers. "I just... I don't wanna let you go either, but..." He exhaled a long shuddering sigh. "...if I can only have one..." He choked on the next words, then ducked his head to hide his face behind his bangs. "...if I can only have one, I want you to be alive."

"You'd rather have me stuck here? Alone?" 

Joshua tugged his hand out of Neku's and let it drop into his lap. His flexed his fingers, watching the skin stretch over his knuckles. 

"It's not fair," Joshua continued. His voice cracked as he forced out the last word. He bit his lower lip hard to stop it from trembling, but nothing could stem the tears forming in his eyes. He buried his face in his hands, breathing hard through his teeth. "It's not—"

Joshua stopped talking. All the tension went out of his shoulders. The pale pink burns forming on his face and neck after being out in the sun for so long faded away, leaving behind nothing but smooth pale skin. A faint tang of ozone hit Neku's nose. Joshua removed his glasses and looked up, dry-eyed, his expression flat. 

"And you call me a stalker. Honestly, Neku."

He stood up and pitched the glasses off the edge of the roof, a smirk forming on his face as he watched them sail away and drop out of sight. He turned on his heel to meet Neku's expression of shock and horror with a smug toothy grin. 

"You must have been thinking _awfully hard_ about me last night to end up here," he drawled. He raised a hand to his chin and lowered his eyelashes. "Have fun?"

Neku scrambled to his feet, wiping the tears from his eyes so he could put all his pent-up frustration and flustered panic into a glare venomous enough to kill Joshua a thousand times over. 

" _'Fun?'_ " 

Neku balled his trembling hands into tight fists. It took everything he had in him not to lunge at Joshua and punch that stupid smirk right off his face.

"You just trapped me here for _hours_ , you _ass!_ I thought you were gonna die!" 

Joshua lifted his shoulders in a loose shrug. "It's not my fault you decided to break in and didn't like what you saw."

Neku ground his teeth, seething. "Broke in _where?_ I was asleep!"

Joshua slipped a hand into his pocket, a bland smile settling on his face. "And don't you think it's about time you woke up?"

He took a long step forward into Neku's personal space. He reached up with his free hand flicked Neku's cheek. Neku flinched away, staggering backward toward the door. His cheek turned hot under his fingertips as he checked his skin for scratches. Joshua giggled, soft and airy.

"The past is the past, Neku. You can't change it," he said.

Joshua snapped his fingers. Neku's limbs locked in place, leaving him immobile. Joshua turned around and began taking confident strides toward the edge of the roof, only letting a smile, fond and bitter in equal measure, reach his face when Neku could no longer see it. He paused at the edge, his bare toes hanging over into the empty air, and took a deep breath. 

He looked over his shoulder at Neku one last time. Neku's eyes were wide with horror, but Joshua didn't allow him to speak. He would have been screaming, begging, but his mouth wouldn't move. Joshua laughed, took a step forward, and fell out of sight.

Neku jolted awake in his room. The sun hadn't risen yet, but the air was still hot and muggy, too wet to wick away the cold sweat and the tears Neku found himself soaked in. It was all a dream. Even though he could still feel the sting of the sun on his skin and the crunch of crumbling concrete between his toes, it wasn't really real. It was only real in the way the UG was real, in an ephemeral private way that Neku didn't know how to even think about. Neku sighed, threw an arm over his eyes, and resigned himself to crying out the worst of it.

* * *

"It was sweet of you to try," Joshua said, apropos of nothing. 

It was Saturday, and Neku was sitting next to him in WildKat, sipping coffee hot enough to burn his tongue that smelled nothing like the shop itself. He paused in the middle of running his sore tongue over the inside of his mouth to shoot a quizzical look in Joshua's direction.

"What?"

Joshua blew the steam off his own cup of coffee, then took a long slow sip. "I used to wear glasses when I was younger. Did I ever tell you?" he said.

Neku furrowed his brow. Joshua had never told him. Joshua never said anything about himself at all when he could avoid it. He had seen those glasses, though, in a dream.

"I hated them," Joshua continued, smiling into his coffee. "I was practically blind without them, but they fogged up at the drop of a hat. I learned a bit of Braille at one point in case I ever decided to give up on the whole thing."

He tapped out a quiet rhythm on his coffee cup with his fingernails. Neku waited for him to say something else, to get to the point. He didn't. 

"...Couldn't you have gotten contacts or something?" 

Joshua shrugged. "I didn't have much of a say in it."

Hanekoma laughed heartily on his way out of the kitchen. "I dunno when's the last time I heard you talk about yourself this much, J." 

He set a stack of pancakes, not quite centered on the plate, not quite elegantly drizzled with sugar and syrup, between Joshua and Neku. He dusted off his hands, looking pleased with himself, then took a step back toward the kitchen.

Joshua thanked Hanekoma for the service, as was only polite. After another slow sip of coffee, he said, "Funny, isn't it? Maybe there's something in the air."

"Or maybe you haven't been getting enough beauty sleep," Hanekoma suggested. "Don't think I didn't see ya stayin' up all night."

Joshua raised an eyebrow at Hanekoma. "Watching me sleep now? Should I be calling the police, Mr. H?"

Hanekoma threw his head back and let out a peal of laughter loud enough to make Neku's ears ring. "Only watching ya _not_ sleep, kiddo." He slipped his hands into his pockets and sauntered back toward the kitchen. "You two have fun with those, yeah? It'll be 1890 yen when you're done," he announced.

After Hanekoma was gone, Neku and Joshua settled into the familiar routine of sharing pancakes, one for Joshua and one for Neku, never sharing one since the unfortunate incident when Joshua had pointed out it was technically an indirect kiss and Beat and Shiki nearly lost their minds. Neku didn't care about that sort of thing, and he was fairly certain Joshua didn't either despite his jokes, but he couldn't ever shake the discomfort after that. Joshua never objected, but he did occasionally eye Neku's personal pancake with an insufferable knowing look that proved he hadn't forgotten.

They talked about all their usual topics, starting, as always, from how annoying it was that Hanekoma didn't give them discounts. For once, it didn't take long for Joshua to run out of things to say. Neku didn't know how to drive a conversation like Joshua did; when Joshua stopped giving him material, he quieted down. He watched Joshua pick at the remains of his half-eaten pancake and tried to place the source of the tension in the air. 

What was it Hanekoma had said? Joshua hadn't been sleeping?

"Oh," Neku said. "Um."

Joshua glanced up. "Hm? You're going to have to use your words, Neku. I may be a mind reader, but you may recall we had a talk about this..."

Neku looked away from Joshua's face. He grabbed what remained of his coffee, gone lukewarm while it lay forgotten on the counter, and downed the rest of it in one go. He didn't normally have the confidence to overcome the feeling that he was going to sound like an idiot when he opened his mouth, but this time it felt important.

"...Any time," he mumbled.

"Come again?"

Neku licked his lips. "You said it was sweet of me to try. Earlier."

Joshua smiled at Neku. "Did I?"

Neku nodded at the counter. He gripped his coffee cup in both hands, hoping the residual warmth would do something to ground him. 

"To change the past, right?" Neku glanced at Joshua's face. He had no visible reaction, nor did he even begin to say anything. Neku looked back down at his empty cup. "So, um. If you need someone to try again... just call me. Any time."

Joshua didn't laugh. He always laughed when Neku tried to be sincere with him, because it never hit the mark. This time, he was dead silent. 

Neku ventured an experimental glance at Joshua's face, expecting to see the same bland, haughty smile he always had when Neku tried to force him down from his high horse. Joshua's expression was carefully unreadable. 

Joshua opened his mouth to say something, a joke or mean little jab to get things back in more familiar territory, to pull himself back to safety. He thought better of it and let the barbs die on his tongue. He looked down at his hands, thin and pale and fragile as they ever were. A smile, fond and bitter in equal measure, settled on his face. 

"Okay, Neku," he said. "I'll hold you to that."


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I done did another one, lol.

Joshua had not gone so far as to invade another person's dreams in years. Relived traumas and jumbled shifting dreamscapes made by a mind trying to make sense of the overwhelming flood of too much information that was being alive got tiresome after a while. No two were alike, but they all slotted neatly into the same genres: a desperate need to understand taken form, an attempt to keep oneself safe in the future, a wish that would never be fulfilled in reality, a persistent fear. Once you had seen the depths of one person's psyche, you had seen them all. 

But Neku had thrown down the gauntlet. Revenge was a more powerful motivator than curiosity. 

Upon entry, Joshua found himself standing in Udagawa with a gun pointed at Neku's head. Neku was on the ground, looking up at him with those irresistible wide terrified eyes. Joshua's trigger finger twitched. He struggled against the temptation to kill Neku again, just to see his face, just to see if he'd still come crawling back after round three. But that wouldn't be _revenge,_ would it? That would just be a fun little game between Joshua and himself. Joshua moved his finger off the trigger and lowered the gun. A quick look at his surroundings revealed the conspicuous absence of Sho Minamimoto. 

"Am I really that scary, Neku?" Joshua asked, amused. "You know, you _could_ stop inviting me to things..." 

Neku scrambled to his feet. The alley was open and clear behind him, but he didn't take even a single step back. Neku held his ground on shaking legs and met Joshua's eyes with a fierce indignant glare. If Joshua hadn't already lowered his weapon, there was no way he would have been able to resist taking the shot. He laughed, instead of worrying about what kind of person that must have made him. 

"What's wrong? Cat got your tongue?" he teased. 

Neku's cheeks reddened. His glare grew sharper and when he found his voice, it was hard as steel. "Why are you doing this?" 

Joshua raised an eyebrow and crossed his arms over his chest, allowing the gun to rest harmlessly behind his elbow, pointed down at the ground. "Doing what? Not shooting you?" 

"Pointing a gun at me, you freak!" Neku shot back. "Who are you?!" 

Joshua put on his blandest least threatening smile. "Yoshiya Kiryu. You can call me Joshua. We're friends, more or less." He made a broad gesture with his gun-free hand. "This is a dream, by the way, which would be why you don't remember me." 

"If we're friends, why do you have a _gun?!_ " 

Joshua shrugged. "You tell me. It's your dream." He tapped his finger against the cold metal of the gun in his hand. "...But if I had to guess, I'd imagine it's because you can't change the past." 

Neku balked. "Did you... shoot me?" 

Joshua held up his gun. "Take a wild guess." 

Neku found himself unable to find the words to respond. His eyes drifted away from Joshua's face and down to the gun in his hand, then back again. 

"I'm just as lost as you, frankly," Joshua said. "If you ever do manage to figure out what possessed you, feel free to let me know." 

Neku squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed his face with his hands, trying and failing to get the image of Joshua pointing a gun at him off the inside of his eyelids. He sucked in a breath through his teeth. He tried to say something, but he couldn't manage to formulate more than few broken fragments of half-finished thoughts. 

"You could leave," Joshua offered. "There's no one stopping you." 

"And let you shoot me in the back? Uh, no thank you." 

Joshua blinked. 'I would never,' was the right thing to say, but the words caught in his throat, stuck to some feeble vestige of honesty left inside him. His mind conjured up the image of Neku running, afraid, back to someone else. Of Neku finally giving up and leaving. 

"...I might," he conceded, though the words burned on his tongue. "Still, I'm surprised you think you're safer if you're looking me in the eye." 

Neku paused. He crossed his arms and met Joshua's gaze again, with as much fiery defiance as ever. 

"You don't have the guts to shoot me face-to-face," Neku said, with more certainty than he knew how to justify to himself. 

"A challenge, Neku? I thought you knew better." 

Joshua smirked with teeth. He pointed his gun at Neku, right between the eyes. Neku froze in place, his eyes going deliciously wide again. 

"Are you _sure_ I don't have the guts?" Joshua purred. 

He stepped forward, closing the distance between them until the barrel was pressed up against Neku's skin. Neku didn't move, but it wasn't bravery this time; his legs had locked up. Joshua could tell. 

"How sure are you, Neku? Want to make a bet?" 

"Stop!" Neku squeaked. "Please, I—" 

And then he stopped talking. He stopped shaking. His expression flattened out. 

"Really, dude?" he said. 

Neku sidestepped away from the gun. Joshua lowered his arm, laughing. 

"You did it first, Neku. It's fair game," Joshua said. 

"Fair game, my ass. I didn't try to _shoot you,_ " Neku muttered. He pinched his cheek and sent himself and Joshua both flying back to the waking world. 

* * *

As soon as he woke up, Joshua reached for his cell phone and dialed Neku's number. Neku picked up immediately. 

"You won the bet, Neku. Do you want a prize?" Joshua said, cutting off Neku's complaints before they started. 

"What bet? That you don't have the guts to shoot me?" 

Joshua smiled up into space. "Was there another one?" 

"First off, I didn't even take that bet. Because you were pointing a gun at my face." 

"Guilty as charged," Joshua drawled. 

Neku snorted. "Yeah, yeah. I don't need a prize, dude. I already got one." 

Joshua let his smile falter, since there was no one there to see him do it. "Oh? Care to elaborate?" 

Neku went silent for a palpable moment before responding, and when he did respond, it was halting and tentative, with just a hint of an awkward nervous stutter. "W-well, uh. You know... If I didn't trust you... we couldn't be friends, right?" 

Joshua's chest tightened. His eyes went wide. Almost as wide, he imagined, as Neku's when they looked up at him past the barrel of a gun. Relief was not supposed to hurt, he thought, but he was choking on thin air and keeping his hand clenched in the thin fabric of his shirt covering his pounding heart like some cliché of a heart attack victim on TV. 

Neku took Joshua's inability to respond for mockery or expectation and kept stumbling over his words to fill the heavy silence. 

"I know it's kinda crazy and... um... nobody else gets it at all, but..." 

"I'm the prize, huh? Are you sure you want to stand by that, Neku?" Joshua said, cutting Neku off again. He managed to keep the worst of the shaking out of his voice, though he could barely speak past the flood of whatever it was he was drowning in. "This is starting to sound dangerously like a confession. Maybe you should go back to bed before you say something you regret." 

Neku stopped talking. He let out a long, tortured groan, then hung up the phone without saying another word. It was the same mechanical beep it always was, but Joshua couldn't help but hear it as defensive this time. He flipped his phone shut and laid it on the bed next to him in case Neku decided to call back and get the last word in. 

He closed his eyes and laughed and wondered how he had managed to so thoroughly lose the upper hand with Neku. He couldn't even tease him with an 'I love you too,' text message. It would work—Neku would be a flustered mess for days—but it would hardly be a prank if it was true. 


End file.
